About Andy Summers

With his virtuoso guitar playing, iconic riffs, and unique take on guitar tone, Andy Summers has solidified his place amongst the biggest guitarists in the history of rock… and rightfully so!

Andy Summers currently uses a vast array of TC effects. Especially the Flashback Delay, Vortex Flanger and Hall of Fame Reverb lets Andy achieve tones harking back to the days of The Police, whilst containing the modern sonic flexibility that keeps pushing his songwriting into exciting new territories.

The English multi-instrumentalist and composer Andrew James "Andy" Summers was born in Lancashire in 1942. In his early youth he took piano lessons, but decided to pick up the guitar in 1956 inspired by the strong musical current of the time.

At the age of sixteen he was playing the local clubs, and from his early 20s on he played with London based rhythm and blues bands such as Zoot Money's Big Roll Band, The Soft Machine and (for a brief time in 1968) The Animals.

After studying for five years at the California State University Northridge in the early 1970s, Summers returned to London.

In 1977 he joined The Police replacing original guitarist Henri Padovani. The Police quickly rose to fame, due to the ingenious synthesis of Stewart Copeland’s reggae rhythms, Andy Summers’ splashing guitar riffs and Sting’s distinct vocal.

As a member of the trio Andy Summers created some of the most seminal guitar riffs of all time, which helped define a whole new take on rock music. Some of his most acclaimed playing can be heard on songs like “Message in a bottle”, “Roxanne”, “Walking on the moon”, “Don’t stand so close to me” and “Every breath you take”.

In 1984, after seven years of touring and record sales around eighty million, The Police split up. During his time with The Police Andy won two Grammys for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. He was also voted the number one pop guitarist for five years by Guitar Player Magazine and was inducted into the Guitar Player Hall of Fame. In 2003, Andy's former bandmates, Sting, and Stewart followed suit, as The Police got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.